from the because-information-wants-to-be-freed dept.
DNC [Democratic National Committee] top dogs can't seem to wrap their brains around GPG encryption, and so now we have the chance to peruse their emails. Which is nice, but still sort of shocking that the people who want to run the country can't secure their communications. It will probably take a while before anything of great interest is found in the archive because it was just released , but if you want to help in the search, have fun.
Here is one amusing excerpt:
NOTICE: This communication may contain privileged or other confidential information. If you have received it in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the message and any attachments without copying or disclosing the contents. Thank you.
Related Stories
Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has announced she will resign as chair of the Democratic National Committee. The resignation is to become effective after the party's convention. The organisation's e-mail system was hacked; leaked e-mails appear to confirm accusations that Wasserman-Schultz had taken action favouring Hillary Clinton in her contest against Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. Sanders had previously called for Wasserman-Schultz to resign, a request he reiterated in light of the leak.
Wasserman-Schultz said in a statement:
I know that electing Hillary Clinton as our next president is critical for America's future. I look forward to serving as a surrogate for her campaign in Florida and across the country to ensure her victory.
coverage:
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday July 23 2016, @08:35PM
Vote Democrat, the party of the guy that invented the Internet but doesn't know how to secure their own stuff.
That's OK, they'll be too busy legislating what the rest of us must and must not do with our computers, because they understand this stuff better than we do.
And no, I don't expect the Repubs to be any smarter.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:56PM
"War is too important a matter to be left to the military." -- Clemenceau
I like how you can reverse that observation, and it is still every bit as cogent. "War is too important a matter to be left to politicians".
EVERYTHING is better handled by ANYONE BUT politicians.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:48PM
I think it's worth putting that one in context: "He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought." - General Jack D Ripper
This from a fictional character who was in the process of starting a global nuclear war.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday July 23 2016, @09:32PM
I read through quite a few of them last night, and here's most of what I picked up.
1. Media influence:
- If you had any doubt that MSNBC was taking marching orders from the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, here's your proof that yes, they are.
- At least a couple of journalists cleared stories with the Democratic Party before even their editor saw them. One suppressed their story at the DNC's request.
- Reporters pursuing stories potentially hostile to Clinton or the DNC were either not responded to at all or told to "fuck off".
2. Not Remotely Impartial:
- The Democratic Party definitely did not want Bernie Sanders to win, and were actively putting their thumb on the scales to prevent that from happening. For example, organizing a plant of somebody to ask Sanders about religion to reveal that he was an atheist.
- There was talk of "Bernie Bros" within the DNC.
- There was some evidence buried in there that the lack of voting places in Rhode Island (particularly in areas where Sanders polled well) was intentionally organized by "one of ours", and a concerted effort to cover their butts.
3. Shady funding:
- One guy accidentally put into the email system exactly how money was getting funnelled around between the Clinton campaign and the DNC. He was reprimanded not for the funding but for emailing information about it.
- There were all sorts of perks given out for next week's convention depending on giving levels.
- The vetting of major donors was particularly interesting. For example, one guy convicted of wire fraud.
4. Pettiness and stupidity:
- Hardly any of these people can spell properly, or use decent grammar. I know, this is a minor point, but these are supposed to be among the top minds in politics.
- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in particular comes off as about as mature as a typical high school cheerleading captain.
- A guy named "Pablo" was by all appearances forced out of the organization because he made Debbie work early in the morning to do a media interview.
One of the many consequences of all this is that the DNC is now the target of a class action lawsuit by Sanders backers, because the DNC is supposed to be impartial and very obviously wasn't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @09:46PM
Your interpretations seem much more extreme than what I've actually read.
For example:
- The Democratic Party definitely did not want Bernie Sanders to win, and were actively putting their thumb on the scales to prevent that from happening. For example, organizing a plant of somebody to ask Sanders about religion to reveal that he was an atheist
One guy sent one email suggesting it. No actual "organizing" happened and there was no "plant."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:29AM
Except that there's not insignificant evidence that the Clinton campaign had already planted a question in the Michigan debate back in March (Clinton announced in her answer to the same question that she had attended services in the very church that the woman who had asked it attended). And her campaign apparently did the same thing to Obama back in 2008. So the idea that they would have done it again in May of 2016, especially with top DNC officials putting the idea out there in email (and these emails indicate that an awful lot is going on that wasn't in the emails, and one guy got in trouble for emailing something they didn't want in writing) is not far-fetched.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @01:43PM
> (Clinton announced in her answer to the same question that she had attended services in the very church that the woman who had asked it attended)
You see that and think conspiracy. I see that and think most inept conspirators ever. Shades of republican accusations against obama - he's totally inept and also a grand-master of evil.
> So the idea that they would have done it again in May of 2016, especially with top DNC officials putting the idea out there in email is not far-fetched.
So they are getting the blame for something they did not actually do. This is witch-hunt logic. One guy said something dumb and nothing came of it. People talk shit all the time.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:42PM
The exchange in the March "debate" happened just as you say it did. The New York Times [nytimes.com] has a transcript (search in it for "Denise Ghattas") and the Inquistr [inquisitr.com] has an article speculating that one reason the Clinton wanted questions about religion to be asked was to highlight the fact that Sanders is Jewish. The article goes on to observe that
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:35PM
That's impossible. What are you, some kind of racist sexist anti-Semitic conspiracy-theorist? They were just being facetious, can't you take a joke?
PffffhahahHAAAAAA. As the Jews' chosen candidate, Hillary is above the law, however, the efforts to bring her down are encouraging, and Assange has hinted that there are more to come. He also said that he has what it takes to get Hillary indicted. Well, I doubt that, since the Jews own America and Assange is known for blowing smoke up our asses, but even forcing her Hillary's hand at stepping down and starting a credible movement to oust DNC chairwoman Debbie Wattoman-Schultz [nocookie.net] would be a step in the right direction to gutting such cancer from our country's leadership.
Anybody paying attention to the news for the past year knows the open secret of how many Democrats are pissed for Watto's annointment of Hillary, roaring for proper debates and literally discussing which color platter [canadafreepress.com] to serve Watto's head on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:39PM
I'm thinking a yellow platter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @12:51AM
in the shape of a sheriff's star, wink wink
(Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:01PM
This place would be pretty unrecognizable without the usual chorus of nattering nabob deranged anti-semitic bigot assholes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:28PM
When you welcome all assholes, you tend to get a lot of assholes.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:09AM
Be glad, you'd make my short list if I were a totalitarian asshole who wanted to control what people were allowed to say and read.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:04PM
Have you ever read your own words?
You're the guy who has said he's OK with people being judged by their names.
You are a totalitarian asshole, you just don't have any power.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 24 2016, @10:36PM
The thing you said of me has nothing to do with being a totalitarian. Get a dictionary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:58AM
Hey, dipfuck, you forgot to "coincidence-detect" Assange. Come on, if you're gonna troll, go big or go home.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Touché) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:37AM
There's a group of powerful Jews acting in concert, but they chose Ms. Clinton, who claims to be Methodist, [nytimes.com] over Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish. That's got to hurt!
It certainly appears that she's above the law, however FBI Director James Comey is Methodist. [umc.org] I don't know about Barack Obama's beliefs; could he be both Muslim and Jewish? Noted Jew Michael Bloomberg wants us to think [haaretz.com] Obama is Christian, not Muslim or Jewish. Would Mr. Obama have gone to all those Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermons if he weren't Christian? If he's Jewish/Muslim he's done a good job of keeping it secret. How do we know he isn't secretly Methodist?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:52AM
Good news as a result of the leak already, that [redacted] Debbie Wasserman Schultz has lost her speaking spots at the convention. http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ [cnn.com]
Go Tim Canova, her primary challenger. https://timcanova.com/ [timcanova.com] Sort of an annoying autoplay but also worth it -- it's a compilation of DWS dodging the question of whether she'll debate Tim. And now she has lost prime time national exposure. So sweet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Saturday July 23 2016, @09:35PM
It's great that they're working so hard for transparency, but I really wish they would get their heads out of their asses sometimes. There is ZERO public benefit of revealing the entire CC information for the donor (last 4 AT BEST for verification, or the BIN only). In fact, all it did was initiate a massive swamping of replacement card requests for people. Those fulfillment centers are working overtime.
For what? We donated to the DNC? All of the donors to the Democratic party have to suffer this why again? We're not the corrupt fucktards that railroaded Sanders out of the nomination. Yes, he still lost by the numbers, but they were actively working against him which is ALL WIKILEAKS HAD TO LEAK.
Wikileaks, I love you guys to death for what you do, but you revealing my name and full credit card info was uncalled for and just hurtful. I'll financially support other whistleblower networks now, thank you very much. Instead of having a good Saturday I have to download your fucking file and peruse it for my information to verify that it has happened.
However, this has given me a good idea. From now on I will buy disposable pre-paids and register them for automatic donations. IMHO, automatic transactions over time show that there is a significant base of support, versus a one-time payment from transient Big Media bullshit. My two cents, but I know I'm not giving organizations a CC number again. Especially when it might not be WikiLeaks but the FBI trying to get a list of all donors.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @09:52PM
> Wikileaks, I love you guys to death for what you do, but you revealing my name and full credit card info was uncalled for and just hurtful.
I get that you are pissed. But the if wikileaks had the info, who knows how many others had it too. At least now you are aware of it (and if the banks are smart they've grabbed the list and are proactively cancelling those cards). The original sin here is the DNC for being so sloppy with that info in the first place. Having all that info just bouncing around their internal systems sounds like a violation of their merchant agreement with the card processing networks. Also, the mere fact of your donation puts you on a "donor list" (aka sucker list) that gets sold and resold to whoever. That's one of the main reasons I'm loathe to donate to charity, I do not want the fact of my donation becoming someone else's property.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:24PM
Also, the mere fact of your donation puts you on a "donor list" (aka sucker list) that gets sold and resold to whoever. That's one of the main reasons I'm loathe to donate to charity
Yep. I made a donation to my local PBS station many years ago. They sent me a "thank you" postcard with my name misspelled in a very unusual way. I then received solicitations from many other organizations with the same misspelling. That's the thanks you get for your donation. I never donated to PBS again.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:53PM
That is why I always give a misspelled name when I do things like that. Same reason my Amazon email address is Amazonprimesavessometime@myemaildomain and no one gets the same contact info. It makes it much easier to determine where people get their info from. And let me tell you, I have had some weird ones. Chief among them is my local library info was eventually used to send me crap for annuities and life insurance within three months. Oh they deny selling it, but that email was only given to them and it isn't a guessable one either. I told them they should check with IT about getting hacked at their last meeting after my questions repeatedly were blown off or unanswered.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:50PM
Ohhh, they're doing me a favor? Sorry, I couldn't feel the reach-around, they need to work on their skills.
Fair enough point, but then why didn't WikiLeaks wait 24 hours after turning over every CC # to their respective financial institutions? Either my CC wasn't in it, or they're thinking I can do it myself, or that *somebody else* was doing it.
That's a fantastic point you make..... if anybody is actually doing it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:50PM
> Ohhh, they're doing me a favor?
No they are not doing you a favor. They just aren't doing you an evil.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:16PM
It absolutely is a violation. One of the basic rules of PCI-DSS is that credit card information is *never* to be stored completely and unencrypted on a hard drive, and certainly not passed around via unencrypted mail.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:32PM
http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/22/wikileaks_keep_fighting_the_man_by_er_publishing_the_personal_details_of_ordinary_citizens/ [theregister.co.uk]
To add to what the other poster said, who do you think gave WikiLeaks these docs? Probably Russian hackers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:40AM
There may be more to it [hackread.com]
The Verge says [theverge.com] there are Social Security numbers too.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday July 25 2016, @01:28AM
I searched for "visa" and looked at 3 of the 183 results. The mails I looked at had each donor's name, address, occupation, employer, employer's address, phone number, user-agent, IP address, amount of contribution, card type, and last four digits from the credit card. They don't have the full credit card information, hence they can't directly be used for fraudulent credit/debit transactions. For what it's worth, they may be PCI-compliant. In the few e-mails I looked at, there was no mention of passport or Social Security numbers.
When people donate to American political parties, the information sometimes becomes a public record. I'm uncertain what exceptions there are. I imagine that the information that must be disclosed is more limited than what's contained in these messages.
While I didn't see an assertion that all the e-mail messages had been exfiltrated from the server, nor did I see an assertion that all the messages that were exfiltrated have been released through Wikileaks. Hence it would be hasty to extrapolate from the 183 matches for "visa" and conclude that probably fewer than a thousand donors have been victimised in this attack.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:15AM
Honestly, Ed, that's a good idea for ALL online financial activity. I've written several billing systems over the years and I wouldn't trust a single damned one of the online card processors with a permanent card. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who keeps all his cash in his pocket/mattress because he doesn't trust banks and never uses anything but cash, money orders, or prepaid cards for transactions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:40AM
It's totally relevant to know who donated for a couple reasons:
1) It will make people think twice about donating. Getting politicians off bribes willingly is like getting a heroin addict off smack -- it takes external forces.
2) We know who to boycott.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:41PM
Are you worried about credit card info? Why? It's public already. It's much worse than that. Think about your (and everyone's) entire credit/debit card transaction record: where, when, what, and how much. This data set exists and is extremely valuable, and therefore, with utmost certainty, it is already in the hands of (at least) the government, the law enforcement, and the organized crime. A lot of people still fail to recognize a simple fact of life: as it stands, there is no way to prevent the duplication of a valuable data set.
By distributing this particular data set, Wikileaks does little if anything to erode your personal privacy and security. The culprit is your credit card company: they assemble, keep, and share this information already, even before the leaks start. And they cannot protect the data set from leaking, no one can. And so an informed consumer tacitly consents to the entire transaction record being shared when they sign up for a credit card. To add insult to injury, this record is not made public, but instead is available pretty much exclusively to the parties who will abuse it: marketers, spammers, law enforcement, criminals. By making a record like this public Wikileaks actually levels the playing field a bit.
If we want privacy of financial transactions, we need to recognize it has to be built into the payment system (see cash). And if a financial institution keeps a record tied to user's name, it should simply be made public.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:16PM
If you have received it in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the massage
Don't all emails have a disclaimer at the end? Look and see if you can find this one in the dump.
IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the yorkshire terrier next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft: However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg and egg whites and place it in a warm oven for 40 minutes. Whisk briefly and let it stand for 2 hours before icing.
Then we would know that Hillary is up to no good! Unless this is from a TRUMP email. Does Trump even do email? Or only Tweets?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 23 2016, @10:39PM
All these buttblasted Dems up in here...glorious. I can't wait for the next few batches of leaks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:43PM
It's like Tisha B'Av came early.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:18PM
Speaking of archives, is there an way to download all these e-mails in a zip file or the like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @08:04PM
https://archive.org/details/wikileaks-dnc-emails-emailid-files-2016-07-24 [archive.org] - I really wish wikileaks would release the entire archive themselves, but I know better than to hold my breath for that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:27AM
So little mention of this in the media, wonder why. Trump farts too loud and it's all the media can talk about, but this release of data proves the DNC is corrupt (no surprise there), and the corrupt media squelches it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @01:09AM
Nonsense, there's extensive coverage of the leak.
https://archive.is/JlafY [archive.is]
If you've found a juicy e-mail that isn't being reported on, do tell.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @01:19AM
What, you expect a conspiracy theorist to actually have some intellectual discipline?
Are you new to the internet?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @01:30AM
Funny who's not on your list.
ABC: the company that hires Clinton surrogate George Stephanopolous
NBC: the company that hires Clinton surrogate Chelsea Clinton
CNN: named in the emails as one of the MSM that vets its stories through the DNC before broadcast.
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:12AM
While trying to answer this, I happened upon a story [mediaite.com] about e-mails between Debbie Wasserman Shultz and NBC's Chuck Todd. [wikipedia.org] She complained to him about unfavourable coverage of her on MSNBC. It doesn't seem especially damning.
I linked to an archived copy of the first page of results Google News gave when I searched for Wikileaks DNC.
CNN is at the top of the list.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ [cnn.com]
NBC isn't there or indeed on the first three pages of results, however CNBC is there. When I searched for DNC Wikileaks NBC on Google News I didn't see an NBC News result, nor did I find the story on nbcnews.com (its search feature isn't working for me). Conceivably, they may get around to carrying it later on.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/23/wikileaks-hits-dnc-ahead-of-convention-competes-with-kaine-vp-nomination.html [cnbc.com]
ABC News is there.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/emails-released-wikileaks-show-dnc-aid-hillary-clinton/story?id=40815253 [go.com]
(by "there" I mean included in the archived results page from Google News to which I linked)
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @10:21AM
NBC News now has an article about this story.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/top-dnc-official-apologizes-insensitive-email-after-leak-n615606 [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:13AM
..is that this article has been pending since well before this news hit mainstream media but it just got put up today.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:57AM
This was in the queue [soylentnews.org] for 26 hours and 11 minutes. There are submissions from the 18th still awaiting review. The fact that donors' PII was leaked isn't mentioned in the story submission or at the linked pages, which could explain why the editors didn't see the urgency of the story.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @03:37AM
One of the leaked emails [wikileaks.org] mocks a Buzzfeed article criticizing DNC and RNC cybersecurity (spotted by The Hill [thehill.com]).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:45AM
Hmmm. Meta Touche.
Great find!